Posted on 01/08/2019 5:59:33 AM PST by SJackson
Why NeverTrumpers should reflect on what makes Trump attractive to voters.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Mitt Romney launched a gratuitous attack on Donald Trump. Like his earlier criticisms, theres not much of substance in this latest complaint, just recycled bromides typical of NeverTrumpRepublicans (NTR) obsession with style, optics, and character. As such, however, Romneys screed is useful for analyzing the disgruntled elitism that explains not just Trumpophobia, but also the reasons for establishment Republicans alienation of millions of voters whose natural political home should be the Republican Party.
Romney begins with the by now stale assessment that Trump, despite his numerous achievements, has not risen to the mantle of the office, implying some recognized standard of acting presidential that Trump has failed to meet. But throughout our history, the definitions of such standards depend on what cohort of Americas electorate you talk to. Andrew Jackson certainly wasnt presidential according to his predecessor John Quincy Adams. He skedaddled from DC to avoid Jacksons inaugural festivities, when the White House was thrown open to ordinary citizens, including Jacksons frontier and backwoods constituenciesKING MOB, according to Chief Justice Joseph Story who made disgraceful scenes in the parlors, as one journalist reported.
Second, these appeals to more recent ideas of presidential decorum imply that compared to previous presidents, Trumps behavior is singularly reprehensible. But is Trumps vulgar and braggadocios rhetoric more disqualifying than JFKs or Bill Clintons sordid sexual escapades in the White House? Or LBJs barnyard epithets, racial slurs, duets with his dog Yuki, or penchant for rubbing himself against women? Whats presidential about Barack Obama fêting foul-mouthed, misogynist rappers at the White House? Or taking an interview with an internet carnival act who sat in a bath tub full of milk and Fruit Loops? Or using a sexual vulgarity to describe the Tea Party? Where were the NTRs and their lofty standards back then?
All such standards contain a good deal of subjectivity and hypocrisy, and they shift according to circumstance. They also reflect social class as well as regional variations. So too with Romneys next specious claim, which occurs in the paragraph that summarizes the NTRs indictment of the presidents character:
To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow our better angels. A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbents shortfall has been most glaring.
Again, given our diversity, its hard to say what is the national character of 330 million people. But character has been a favorite weapon in the anti-Trump arsenal, typically used simplistically, as in this catalogue of fine-sounding vacuities. For example, the distinction between private and political behavior, or words and deeds, is seldom acknowledged. Like virtue, character is recognized in meaningful action, not transient words as Aristotle said of virtue, if it were otherwise, wed all be virtuous when we are asleep.
After two years, youd think the NTR would notice the pattern: for all Trumps heinous tweets and petty exaggerations, he has deregulated the economy, created conditions for its growth, withdrawn from two disastrous multinational treaties, and reshaped the Supreme Court for decades to come. Would the NTR prefer to have had a progressive President Clinton making policy instead of the bumptious President Trump?
For ordinary citizens, its hard to see what use to them Romneys no-doubt superior character and preppy deportment were after he ran a cringing campaign that gave the country to a progressive president whose aim was the fundamental transformation of our political order. And what was it in Romneys character that made him freeze and go speechless when moderator Candy Crowley shamelessly interrupted the debate to support Barack Obama during their second presidential debate? Was that chivalry or a failure of nerve, the first of which irrelevant for presidential decisions, the second potentially disastrous.
Remember how JFKs similar deer-in-the-headlights moment with Khrushchev in Vienna emboldened the Premier to think he could get away with putting nuclear missiles on Cuba? (By the way, the missiles were removed not because of Kennedys new-found spine, but because he cut a deal to remove our missiles from Turkey, and promised to lay off Cuba, in effect abandoning Cubans to Castros tender mercies.) Moral cowardice is a more dangerous character flaw than a penchant for hyperbole and cheap insults.
More important, many great politicians and leaders have had sketchy characters or bad manners. Even old-fashioned liberals who recognized Richard Nixons flawed character admitted that he was a good president, certainly light-years ahead of the pious mediocrity Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton has displayed throughout his career in public office a deeply flawed character, but he was a shrewd politician and governed much more wisely than Carter and Barack Obama, even if Clinton did so for selfish political gain.
Then theres the bathetic inspire us and unite us to follow our better angels, as if a president is a life-coach instead of the Chief Executive of the most powerful nation in history. Sure, inspiring and uniting are great, but outside of war-time, they yield precedence to getting the right policies put in place, which requires navigating in a mixed government that hems the executive in with checks and balances. And the disagreements over what are the right policies are fierce, for they usually involve passionate beliefs that tend to the absolute and nonnegotiable, and usually make comity and mutual respect impossible. Are our debates today more divided, resentful, and angry than the battle over slavery was?
Thats the price we pay for our system, which is designed to protect political freedom from the concentrated and expansive power that often follows from unity preached by charismatic and inspiring great leaders. After all, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were great at uniting and inspiring their peoples.
The appeal to decorum and unity, another NeverTrump trope, ignores the great diversity of American identity, with corresponding differences in standards of behavior. So where does Romney find a national character that reflects the great diversity and variety of American identities? Apparently not among the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump the majority of whom live in fly-over country and lack college credentials.
This is what the NeverTrumpers dont get: their harsh criticisms of Trump necessarily extend to his fans, who either are flawed in the same ways as he, or too ignorant and unsophisticatedor, as Romney put it, they can be played for suckers to see through his populist and jingoistic pandering. Either way, they are inferior to the NeverTrump sophisticates whod rather lose election after election than win and get the job done of rolling back a decade of progressive misrule.
And speaking of character, what does it say about Romneys that he kept his principled critique of Trump to himself when he was presenting himself at the White House as a candidate for Secretary of State, and when he accepted Trumps endorsement when he ran for the Senate? Ingratitude for the presidents endorsement that helped him win his seat voters in Utah went for Trump by 18 points likewise doesnt demonstrate much integrity. And isnt it the opposite of integrity to refuse three times during a debate in the Senate race to say whether he stood by his earlier trashing Trump as a fraud and a phony who was playing members of the American public for suckers?
And now, with the House returned to the Democrats and impeachment a possibility, is it a coincidence that Romney is emboldened to launch harsh criticisms in a progressive, anti-Trump outlet like the Post? Is Romney pleased or shamed by the praise now being heaped on him by the same progressives who demonized him when he ran in 2012, and will do so again if he doesnt oppose the president at every opportunity? Speaking of 2012, where were these criticisms back then when he sought Trumps endorsement? Isnt there an odor of opportunism and trimming about his current salvo against the president?
Nor does it show much integrity or professional ethics for the newly elected Senator to alienate the president with whom he must work in order to serve his constituents, and to advance the principles and beliefs that make them Republicans, and that Trumps policy achievements embody. As the president recognized in a tweet, Romney will likely become another Jeff Flake, a sometimes mole for the Democrats whose drift to the left suggests political principles diametrically opposed to those of Republicans.
As for the presidents penchant for exaggeration, has Trump told one lie as consequential in the real world as Barack Obamas if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor? Or his administrations concerted, premeditated lies about the Benghazi fiasco, in which four Americans were murdered because of reelection politics and rank incompetence? Or when has Trump demonstrated a slavish deference to Vladimir Putin more dangerous than Obamas sotto voce promise of flexibility to Putin via the Russian bosss flunky?
This straining out the Trump gnat while swallowing the Obama camel amounts to the NTR functioning as an occasional fifth column for the opposition, and puts in doubt the NTRs claim to moral superiority and purity. And if policies that demonstrate conservative principles Trump supposedly is besmirching are so cherished by the NTR, whats so principled about hysterically attacking and weakening the president who has instituted some of the policies inherent in these principles? Dont such attacks in effect support and hearten the enemies of these policies?
Finally, Romney fires a parting shot at the presidents alleged foreign policy sins. He decries the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the presidents thoughtless claim that America has long been a sucker in world affairs. We assume Romney means by allies the Kurds, but he should wait for the details of the withdrawal. If, as appears likely air assets and troops remain in Iraq, we will have the means to support the Kurds if necessary. But our strategic goals that justify our continued presence in Syria has yet to be explained clearly to American voters, who are impatient with over a decade of squandered lives for no apparent gain. Thats why Trump promised during the campaign to pull out our troops.
Otherwise, Romney sings the old globalist tune about Trump being mean to our allies, as though alliances are based on politeness and protocol rather than interests. All our relations with other sovereign nations are based on treaties whose terms spell out each sides obligations. We have allies in order to serve our interests and protect our security, and when allies stop doing that, a president should criticize them.
Trumps scolding of NATO deadbeats, for example, who cant spend a measly 2.0% of GDP on their military preparedness, is just and necessary. It is shameless that NATO ally Germany, the worlds fifth richest nation, spends a bit more than 1% of GDP on defense. And its an insult to promise to reach that goal by 2025. Germany gets away with this fecklessness because US taxpayers subsidize its security. Ordinary voters would agree that we are being played for suckers by the Germans, who among Europeans poll the highest dislike of Americans.
And we cant let go unmentioned Romneys typical NTR use of progressive question-begging epithets: But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions. How does it demonstrate conservative principles to use these meaningless smear-terms, the lefts favorite Orwellian verbal clubs? And exactly which democratic institutions is Trump destroying? His appointment of two Constitutionalist Supreme Court justices has done more for our democratic institutions than the NTRs endless carping. And we just had a midterm election that gave power to the Democrats, a sign that our democratic machinery is functioning as it should. Id say a never-ending inquisition by a special prosecutor in order to reverse the results of a legal election is a much greater threat to democracy than Trumps tweets and rhetoric.
Instead of obsessing over Trump, NeverTrump Republicans should practice some self-reflection and figure out what made Trump attractive to Republican voters, 89% of whom approve of him. They can start with their smug self-righteousness, the way they assume that their superior intelligence and finer characters entitle them to rule.
They may think the masses are dumb or simple-minded, but ordinary people know when theyre being talked down to by entitled elites. They can spot a double standard or one applied selectively from a mile away. They know politicians lie all the time, usually when they make campaign promises they dont keep, or sacrifice principle for political expediency or personal pique. They get that criticizing Trump for keeping campaign promises is also a criticism of his supporters to whom he made the promises.
Trump, on the other hand, is trying to fulfill his campaign promises, and says plainly what a lot of voters think about our culture of politically correct tyranny and RINO preemptive cringing. Among our clubby establishment political elite, thats a rare example of political honesty and integrity manifested in actions, not words. Romney should try it.
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They may think the masses are dumb or simple-minded, but ordinary people know when theyre being talked down to by entitled elites. They can spot a double standard or one applied selectively from a mile away.
Yes we can. And it thoroughly pisses us off.
Strong words.
Washington’s GROPElites will ignore them.
Romney knew what he was doing. His opening salvo, before he’s even sworn in. He wants to be the new Juan McStain, and President of Republicans, Inc.
Mitch rewarded him with a seat on the Foreign Relations Comittee. Jt’s all about the money. Gotta keep those reelection coffers filled. Cha. Ching.
You started out assuming that these people can think. There is no proof of that. What can be proven is that these morons BELIEVE. They KNOW they are right so facts, history and logic are totally unnecessary.
Bush League Republicans are fully committed to the GHW Bush Plan for North Mexico (aka USA).
There is no path to the New World Order with US in the way.
This is the root of Romney's confusion.
He is confusing "public image" built to convey a propriety and respectability with actual character.
Trump grew up the son of a very successful real estate developer in Queens.
There was and is no need now to build a respectable public image when the underlying person is/was himself sufficiently respectable (like Fred Trump).
Like most people from Queens, Trump is a "what you see is what you get" kind of guy. He's not artificially polished and he makes no pretensions about wanting to be anything other than exactly what he is.
As a former NYer, I have watched Trump for years. Rumors always swirled around him about affairs and...well, about only affairs. No drugs, no alcohols, no wild parties with prostitutes...no nothing.
Because he was rich and divorced and dated women, the only rumors that ever swirled were that he might be having a relationship with a woman.
And he did once. With Marla Maples.
We don't know if he was legally separated from Ivana or what. Trump didn't give a damn about his public image, so he didn't share the details.
Of course, the end result of this "affair" was that he married the girl and even had a child.
Back to Mitt.
It must kill Mitt that Trump didn't have to maintain a "public image," a middleman through whom he had to live his fake life.
That's why Mitt seems so damned fake. He is.
The Mitt Romney we see is actually an avatar maintained at what must be a huge investment on the part of the real Mitt.
Yep. Mitt's pissed.
Our country is under attack from socialists engaged in what is coming to look like Civil War II. But Mitt isn't worried about that (if he is even aware of it).
Nope. Mitt is jealous...jealous that Trump doesn't have to maintain an avatar of dignity, that Trump can just tweet thoughts right off the top of his head without having to spend countless hours worried about the possible negative effects on his avatar.
Damn that Trump.
Thanks SJackson.
Let’s say I have two choice for a surgeon...
One doctor is nice - has great bedside manner - - and has never been unfaithful to his wife. Twenty percent of his patients die on the table...
The second doctor is an obsessive jerk - horrible bedside manner and he’s been known to enjoy the company of women. None of his patients have died...
Which doctor would YOU choose?
Bkmk
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